It happens at every conference – a deluge of useless crap that somebody somewhere will actually buy. CES 2012 was no exception to this and there were actually far more terrible items than I could have possibly fit into a single post. So we picked 5 of our “favorites” from a single hall and rounded them up for you.
Now, in no particular order, here are the worst things we saw at CES:
Pat Says Now had quite a few peripherals and some of them were actually quite nice. This one, however, didn’t make the cut. I suppose that it will be a fit for someone. Most likely a basement-dwelling neckbeard.
I first saw these at CTIA last year, and I kinda blew them off. I figured that there was no way that the company would be in business in another 6 months. Apparently, I was wrong. Or at least I was wrong enough that the company can still afford to set up a booth at CES.
This company is so concerned about radiation that they even manufacture their own “personal note recorder”, which is a small video camera that they think you’ll use so you don’t have to touch your phone. But these horribly-ugly handsets really took the cake. Unfortunately I couldn’t keep a straight face long enough to get an interview with the maker because his tinfoil hat ideas had me cracking up a bit too much.
Ssd Pedobear was all over CES this year, mainly from Asian manufacturers of mobile accessories. There was actually a great set of wired headphones with Sad Pedobear on the ear cups, but this case provided for a better picture. Now, is that a bear in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?
For those of you who have been to a Spencer’s Gifts, this will look really familiar. But to put an “electronics” twist onto this company’s crap, everything that they sell has lights, or beeps or is otherwise electrified. I could have picked 5 random things from here and they could have all been terrible, but I figured that I’d spread the love around somewhat.
So there you have it. 4 eye-rolling pieces of junk, and an entire booth full of them! It’s too bad that we couldn’t find the better butt-cleaning toilets again. My goal was to have TNW’s Matthew Panzarino do a demo for you, but we got lost in the CES shuffle.
Want to see the stuff from CES that didn’t suck? Check out all of our coverage here .
Nintendo’s Wii U console is launching in the US on Nov 18, Japan on Dec 8, starts at $299
Update : Nintendo has announced that the Wii U will go on sale 11/18 in the US. It’ll cost $299.99 for the basic set and $349.99 for the deluxe set.
Nintendo on Thursday firmed up details surrounding its Wii U console, announcing that the device will cost $337 (26,250 yen) for the basic set and $405 (31,500 yen) for a premium version when it arrives in Japan. The company held a launch presentation in Japan and is scheduled to make a US-specific announcement in New York City later on Thursday.
The Wii U, the successor to Nintendo’s popular but long in the tooth Wii console, carries on some of the motion controls that made the original Wii a hit, while also adding a GamePad, an iPad-like tablet controller.
The premium set will come in black with 32GB of memory, a GamePad, stands for the GamePad and a stand for the Wii U body. The basic set, on the other hand, will include the GamePad and just 8GB of flash memory. Both sets will come with a stylus and AC adapters.
The console comes at a key time for Nintendo, which has watched its profits erode after its gaming dynasty was challenged by first Sony’s Playstation and Microsoft’s Xbox, and then Apple and Google with their mobile operating systems. In the second quarter of this year, the company lost $132 million dollars.
The console will also make use of the Nintendo Network service, a rival to Microsoft’s successful Xbox Live service, that will allow downloads of games as well as provide additional media and may also include a full-scale application store .
Nintendo is cutting things close, as it had previously promised that the device would launch this year.
On the handheld side, Nintendo announced in March that it had sold 4.5 million of its 3DS portable game system in the US in less than a year after its debut. As of the end of June, a total of 19 million 3DS units had been sold worldwide.
(hat tip The Verge )
Image Credit
Google wants everyone to know James Bond uses an Android phone
One of Apple’s most successful marketing strategies is product placement, especially when it comes to big blockbusters. Google, via Sony, wants to do the same for Android, starting with Skyfall, the latest James Bond spy film. Here’s what the Android account just posted on Google+ :
As a sidenote, I want to point out that Android’s Twitter account , which usually mirrors everything the Google+ account sends out, has remained silent this time. Maybe the message was simply too long (it’s over 140 characters!).
Anyway, back to Skyfall. Since recent James Bond movies are produced in part by Sony Pictures Entertainment, it’s no surprise that Sony is making a point to promote its devices in the latest film as well. It’s also not the first time; as my editor Matthew Panzarino notes: in Casino Royale, Blu Ray disc players were featured prominently in the country club scene and Bond used two Sony Ericsson phones throughout the movie.
Now, Sony is going even further by pushing the Sony Xperia TL as the official James Bond phone. AT&T announced earlier this month it will be offering the device, which features a 1280×720 4.6-inch HD display, a 13-megapixel camera, 1080p video recording, and Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) with an upgrade to Jelly Bean sometime later.
So the phone isn’t new, and neither is the Skyfall placement. Yet as far as we can tell, Google only started to endorse Sony’s marketing push today. In fact, the Google+ post was made by the Android account (as opposed to simply being a reshare of a Sony post) and points to a competition to win the phone . Furthermore, the link first tells the visitor about Sony Xperia on Google+ before they can continue.
It looks like Google and Sony have recently strengthened their relationship in the hopes that both will be able to benefit.